In the field of dentistry, the restoration of a patient's tooth or teeth generally includes the replacement of the natural tooth substance by an artificial substance. For larger restorations, pre-finished dental restorations or prostheses are commonly used to replace the tooth or teeth or at least part of those.
Ceramic materials are widely used for making high-quality dental restorations because of their good physical, aesthetic and biological properties. These restorations are often manufactured in automated processes, which typically include at least one or more of the steps of:    digitally capturing the shape of a patient's teeth, for example by scanning a model of the teeth or the actual teeth in the patient's mouth;    making a design of the restoration using computer-aided design (CAD) software;    manufacturing the restoration from the design using a Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) machine.
There is a general desire to minimize costs for manufacturing of dental restorations. It is further generally desirable to maximize the quality of dental restorations.